What About Commissions?

Posted by Optica 4 years ago

 

I've been getting a lot of asks about whenever I'm open for commissions. On Aryion, FA, even Twitter. I even have some notes I have yet to respond to, as of typing this. To answer, no, I'm currently closed on commissions, excluding the recent YCH I started last month.

Why? A few reasons. One being price adjustments. I've been trying to determine fair rates that benefits me, but also keeping clients in mind so I'm not gouging them for money. Keep things fair. That, and price adjustments for additions, edits, ect, and it starts to become a little more convoluted. I am not the biggest fan of math, I barely passed Algebra during my high school days. I'm still working out the pricing, honestly, even though my Aryion page has ones set from... three to four years ago(?)

The other reason is so I'm not burning myself out on a big commission. I made that fatal mistake with taking a large order for a client that I ended up bailing on & refunding. I guess you can say I'm a little afraid. The last thing I want to do is to take an order that becomes too much for me to focus on. Too much specifications in a scene, for example, can be a real groin kicker. Tweaks here & there are fine, especially if constructive to make a scene more fluid, but any other additions or maybe a new scene squeezed in can be a bit too much for me. That's not me trying to fault the customer, mind you, that's my own shortcomings when it comes to commissions. Working on videos can be very time consuming, especially with animation, tweaks, and especially bugs (because SFM can be a buggy fucker).

There's one more reason, though it's mostly based on a fear. My health isn't in the best spot, to put it short. For almost six years, I've been trying to figure out this "pressure" inside my head that makes me wanna fall over at times. Headaches and high blood pressure are all too common, especially noting my past less-than-stellar moments with temper not making it any easier, to put it lightly. To put it bluntly, I'm afraid to take a commission & not being able to finish it because my bad health reaches some climax or something. I've been to the hospital before, and it's not fun. The last thing I want to happen (god forbid) I fall over and I'm not seen for a long time. I don't want any customer to think I up and ran with their money with my bad health as an excuse. Maybe I'm overthinking things, I don't know. I don't think it helps that last week alone, I was so easily bed ridden due to a stomach virus of all things. I just want to be ready for any committed project.

Will commissions eventually open? Soon.™ Cortana once said, "Don't make a girl a promise, if you know you can't keep it," so I can't promise you guys when they open, but eventually I will take commissions. When the time comes, I want to be ready for it. I'm still deciding on pricing, conditions, and how I handle a queue. I've even been debating whether or not to use Google Drive for displaying current commissions in progress, or just sticking with Twitter/Discord for that. In fact, if anyone has ideas on how or what I should be doing things, please don't hesitate to offer any advice. I'm all ears, here.